Chrono War book 1: The Tournament Beyond the Stars
by brokenangelus
Summary: The Biggest Crossover you will ever read, Based off of Gamefaqs' Summer contest. Extremely deep action story with 13 chapters and 4 books. Too complicated to sum up. Please R&R if only to let me know you've read it. chapter three up!
1. A Window to the Stars

Chrono War: Episode 1,

The Tournament Beyond the Stars

**_Table of contents_**

A Window to the Stars

The Roar of Vengeance

Conspiracy

Friendships End

Truth

The Chrono Items

Sacrifices

Link Vs. Ganondorf

The Black Flame

Sinner

Rivals

Sephiroth's Power and Cloud's Sorrow

Finale

Chapter 1: A Window to the Stars

The eerie blue glow was disconcerting. He was having trouble paying attention to his thoughts. The trip was nearing its end, and he would have to be prepared for the shock of returning to the laws of physics. The portal he was taking was one of the original portals from Otherworld. They took a long time compared to the windows that showed up sometime after the portals opened. It all happened for everyone around ten years ago, when the universe broke wide open.

When it first happened, there were no windows, but anywhere ten to fifty blue portals scattered seemingly randomly on each world. It was just after a thunder storm of biblical proportions that swept across all the worlds simultaneously. When the clouds cleared, they found, scattered all across the surface of the respective worlds, blue cloud-like objects, all at ground level. The clouds seemed to come from nowhere as they swirled out of the cores of the hurricane-shape clouds and into oblivion. They were around five feet tall and three feet wide, and could be entered from either end. It took some experimentation, but a few worlds found that using them would take you to an area with a few hundred of those blue portals, and each one went to a particular world, and a particular place in that world. They were worlds beyond the stars.

No one knew why or how it happened, or what catalyst from what world caused it, but soon everybody stopped caring. Explorers soon started coming in from other worlds, and it took only a few months for some strong alliances to be formed between the worlds. The trading of resources – especially the ones that were exclusive to only a few worlds – and different technology brought a new age of understanding of science. And now, ten years later, the worlds are all very different places.

But that was of little consequence right now to Cloud Strife, the man who was in one of the portals right now. He hated these portals because he hated being alone, though he had been most of his life. When you're in them, there's a sense of vertigo as you move through the endless abyss of bright blue energy.

"How much longer is it going to be?", he thought to himself. He decided to talk aloud to keep his senses in tune, due to that fact that there was very little sound in the portals. "I should have tried harder to find a window route." Right afterwards he assured himself that he wasn't anywhere close to a viable route and had no choice but to take the portal.

Suddenly the blue hue began to shift into a mixture of an orange sunrise and the various colors of the world he was going to. At first everything was blended together in a blur but the closer he got to the world, the more defined the worldhe was going to became. Unfortunately, before he could enjoy it too much, the close surroundings came up and the dark small room, that the portal exit was in, was all he could see.

1A minute or two later, Cloud was on good ol' terra firma (as he thought to himself) and walked out onto the edge of the cliff overlooking his destination, the "Best Beyond the Sun" annual tournament. The place was in an uproar over the new arrivals in time for the opening speech, like Cloud was. There were also big crowds swarming around certain people, and those groups, Cloud noticed, were the ones making most of the noise down below.

He spoke to himself, "There will always be show-boaters that are just here for the audience." He held his fist by his face, clenched it tight, and smirked. "And those are the ones that I will be taking out first!" And then he walked down to the meeting place in a restaurant just outside the central stadium.

He ran down the hill at full speed, feeling the unsoiled air hit his face and refresh his lungs and blood. After the hours in transit and months spent wandering soggy polluted worlds like Gothelm, and the ruins of the destroyed city of Midgar, working on restoration, this was a much welcome change of pace. The cool air mixed with the wind running past his face was infused with the smell of wildflowers and the good foods coming from the venders that were in the tournament village, called Tantalus Square. It enriched his senses and made him much more aware than the fog of sluggishness that had washed over him in the portals.

When he felt satisfied, he went over the plans with himself one more time.

"Okay, so first I go over to the tavern in the main section of the Square to meet Link and the others…. Now who's going to be there again? Oh, right. Chrono, Link, Mario, and Sonic are all going to be there. Then after we catch up we all go to the Speech together, and after that I'll go meet Sieg and see her again…." end 1

He continued talking to himself for a while until he reached the meeting spot and saw that the other four were already there.

"Hey guys," said Cloud with a smile. He looked around the room. The first man he saw was Link. He was around twenty-two years old with a long green shirt and hair more purely blond then Cloud's was. He had a small build but well structured biceps, and that made sense because his fighting style an advanced style of sword-play.

Next was Mario, a short, portly man with a mustache and red suit. If Cloud didn't already know Mario's skills with controlling flames, he would have though he was just some short guy with a nothing little job, like plumbing.

After him there was Chrono, a young man with…..odd skills, as Cloud often put it. He could warp space-time and cause all sorts of amazing things to happen. In the Tournament last year he had done a move that seemed to go so fast he was in six places at once; at least that's what Cloud saw. Unfortunately for him, he lost last time to Mario and has been holding a small grudge ever since. Unlike the other three in the group that Cloud kept tabs on, Chrono seemed to disappear off the face of the earth forten months, just a few weeks before the prelims. It was a big surprise to everyone when he suggested they meet when the tournament started, after the prelims.

And finally there was the oddest of the bunch, Sonic. He blue and furry with short stubs for legs as arms, he couldn't be more then three feet tall. Cloud once said he mildly resembled a hedgehog. The world he was from was filled with humanoids matching that description but Sonic had one thing none of them had: his incredible speed. If he was five times weaker then his opponent it wouldn't matter because he'd likely get ten punches in by the time it took his opponent to deliver one to him. His speed with his fists was matched only by his feet, and together they made him one of the most powerful contenders in the tournament.

And so this loose group of friends was. They worked together and kept each other company during the tournament, and kept in touch with each other, for the most part.

"Hey Cloud," said Link, followed quickly by the other three.

"So how is everyone?" Cloud asked.

Chrono responded, "Good. We just found out that there will be some interesting announcements during Sieg's Speech. Do you have any clue what he'd have to say that could be so important? You have been keeping in contact with him, right Cloud?"

"Yes I have, but not for that reason. He's helping me with something, and when I talk to him I'm not really in a chatty mood."

"What is it?" Mario asked.

"It's complicated. I'll explain later."

Mario could only shrug to that response.

There was a brief silence until Cloud spoke up. "So Link, how's world peace turned out?"

He was referring to Link's prize for winning the tournament last year. The winner gets one wish from a magic crystal. Link won last time and got his wish, and as clichéd as it was, he wished for world peace. Unfortunately, the way he worded it only brought world peace to his world.

Now, you might be wondering how someone could find a magic wish giving crystal. To this I must respond, "Nobody knows." And the reason nobody knows has an even simpler answer. If you were told that someone had a way to grant you anything your heart desires but he got annoyed when you asked questions, would you ask questions or make a wish?

"As well as could be expected. Hyrule really isn't all that different, actually. We still have weapons and armies. The biggest difference is that the race we call the Gerudo, dessert folk, have made peace with the other races in Hyrule." The others nodded while Link continued, "This caused a lot of the other tensions between the other races to dissipate. Without the threat of the renegade Gerudo, the only real threat to national security was gone, and the rulers of the world became less suspicious of each other. Negotiations opened up, and the Hyrule Accord was signed."

He paused for a second and then added, "You know the funny thing is that the wish itself did only one simple thing, and that started a chain reaction that got us world peace."

Their conversation moved onto other subjects, and lasted about another half-hour before they heard an announcement over the intercom that the speech was about to take place, and they walked over to the central stadium

It was a huge stadium, bigger then three football fields, and round. The stands were just like normal ones, with VIP suites and bolted down chairs with only a little bit of cushioning; but the grounds where the fights would take place were extraordinary. There was no round, cement ring like last time. Instead, various types of machines were located at different points around the stadium. Cloud counted about twenty jagged machines pointing at a spot around the cubic center of the stadium. He couldn't even guess what they were supposed to do. There were also a few other types of machines including the force field creators that protected the fans.

Suddenly a voice from behind him snapped Cloud out of the state of awe he was in. He looked behind himself to see Link reading a plaque next to the arena entrance.

"In loving memory,

Donna

&

Alphonse"

"Who's that?", Link asked.

Although there was no way Link could know it, Cloud knew the answer. "Sieg told me a while ago that he had a wife and son. They both died in separate incidents."

"Really? Do you know what happened?" Cloud shook his head. "No? Oh… but how did-" He was cut off in mid sentence by Chrono.

"You know, Link, we should probably just drop the subject." Sonic and Mario nodded in agreement. "Besides, look over there. Sieg is almost ready."

The other contestants in the tournament, which had up till then been very loud, had quieted down. Cloud and the others looked up and saw a man get on top of a podium that was temporarily set up for the speech. The man was the proprietor of the tournament, Sieg Kasumi. A man in his mid-thirties, he was slender and gangly, but extremely fit. His hair was as black as a raven, and his clothing was fiery red and loose fitting.

Cloud knew him fairly well and found him fascinating. He was a very rich man, due to having the multi-world record for the most patents ever, with 1300 different patents and another 70 pending. He was sort of childish, and got along well with Cloud, who was more then ten years younger then him. However, despite this, he was a proud and determined individual, and Cloud had a lot of respect for him.

Just as Cloud and his posse got to the front of the crowd, Sieg began his speech in a loud but calm voice.

2 His voice boomed on the loudspeaker. "Contestants, spectators, VIPs, and anyone else I may have missed, welcome to the second annual 'Best Beyond the Stars' tournament. This year there will be a few announcements that apply to all the contenders."

"First off, the fights will be divided into five divisions. These divisions are 'North', 'West', 'East', 'South', and the 'Final Eight'. The first four divisions I mentioned will contain 16 contenders each, and be held in smaller stadiums located ten miles to the north, south, east, and west of this stadium. I don't think need to state which is where. The four stadiums all have some slight differences from each other, which is part of the reason for this change.

The second reason is, quite frankly, last year there were a lot less people watching from the stands. We need the extra room, and because of that, we have a new program for getting into the stands that utilizes these extra stadiums. You spectators watching this from Tantalus Square will find pamphlets on top of the TVs you're watching that explain this in more detail.

Now then, onto the subject of what this means for the contenders; the contenders will be living in four small suburbs of the central town. Despite this, they will be allowed to visit the other parts of Tantalus Square at their leisure. This will all change when we get down to the last eight players.

When we reach the fourth round, the remaining eight contenders will move into new cabins in the central town. They will then be divided into two larger stadiums that will be radically different from each other and the previous stadiums. Then for the last round, we will finally come here, and I promise that this stadium will hold some surprises."

He paused for a few moments to let in some applause and to catch his breath. Cloud noticed a few awkward pauses during his speech that gave him the impression that this speech was improvised. That feeling was supported when his tone became much more serious for the second part of Sieg's speech.

He continued, "More of this will be explained by some of my associates later on to smaller crowds, specifically what you need to do for this. You may meet my associates if you want to know more, sooner, if you have the time for it. There is something else I wanted to tell you all. This contest may now be one year old, but this all began ten years ago. When those portals came out of nowhere, it was both a time of great progress and catastrophe. When those portals opened, it let out all the good and all the bad this universe had to offer... And even though this is a fact, I still feel that it was a time of great revelation for all society. A time when every last world realized in the same instance, 'we are not alone'. This does not even include the fact that we have learned more about this universe in the past decade then we have in the millennia before it.

Not the least of these is the Celestial Mirror Phenomenon." He was speaking with a sad smile that no one but Cloud seemed to notice. "The very fact that every time we looked out into deep space we were actually looking into a cloud of compressed gas that acted as a funhouse mirror and blocked out the true depths of this universe will be talked about for centuries, I'm sure.

I just want to say to everyone here that you are all the best this universe has to offer. And if something bad comes from this new world order, it will be up to brave men and women like you to change the course of history for the better. To be as strong as you have to be to be here, you are all incredible warriors and will be surely needed in the worst case scenario. I do not know if there can ever be one good and one bad, so I can only give you this small piece of advice: always stay on the path you want to take in life, and if you can do that, then I know everything will work out for the best.

Oh, and one more thing, and I'm sorry if I scare anyone with this. If in the future something should happen to these worlds that rattles them to their cores, many lives are sure to be lost. Those people, we must never forget them." end 2

There was a scattered applause following his unusual speech. Most people didn't quite know how to react. Those that did applaud did so because they could see that even though his words were strange, they were sincere. They were comforted by that fact.

Cloud was the first one in the group to say anything. "He knows something."

Sonic chortled, "Heh. Well it looks that way. Any idea as to what has him so spooked?"

"As I told you before, I have to go meet him right now in his office. I'll ask him then."

Link said, "Cloud, can I come with you?"

"No, there is something I need to do on my own."

"Well then, can I go with you to his office? I want to get an appointment to find out about the lodging."

"I guess that would be okay."

Cloud and Link separated from the other three and went off into the central hall. It was filled with people, most of whom were contestants. They were all chatting loudly so Cloud tried to ignore everything but where they were going, and his conversation with Link. He was in the middle of discussing the new rules, when he heard an eerily calm voice from right next to him.

3 "Hello Cloud."

Cloud recognized the voice and froze in his steps. The next few seconds felt liked years as he turned to the voice. His thoughts ran amok with half constructed sentences. He had to breathe deeply to calm himself down until he finally looked to his left. The whole process took about fifteen seconds. He turned to find he was right, and he never wished to be more wrong in his whole life.

He saw two men, the bigger of whom seemed to be more interested in Link. Respectively Link was looking with suppressed rage at the bigger man. Cloud however was too scared to notice at the time, and only remembered it some time later. The man who called to Cloud was named Sephiroth. He was five feet tall and had foot long glistening silver hair draped down his back. His face, though… His face was inhumanly neutral with calm blue eyes and a sickeningly sweet smile just barely getting past his lips.

Cloud stumbled on his words for a few seconds before he finally produced a complete and intelligible sentence. "What are you doing here?" he asked shakily.

A soft chuckle came from Sephiroth, followed by an answer. "I'll be competing this year."

The man behind Sephiroth gave an annoyed cough, reminding Sephiroth to introduce him.

"Oh yes, thank you for reminding me. This is a friend of mine, Ganondorf Dragmire." He turned to Link. "Your name is Link, right? I believe you two have already met each other."

"You could say that." said Link.

Suddenly Ganondorf spoke up. "I'm not going to be passive-aggressive like Seph over there; I'm here to win this tournament and get back into Hyrule and then some."

Link regained his composure before speaking, "By 'then some' you mean you want to take over Hyrule, right? Didn't you ever think of considering a new career path?"

"I thought we agreed to not be passive-aggressive."

"Right…Well I have nothing more to say to you. Just remember Ganondorf, the road to that crystal goes right through me."

"I'll say... Did you see the brackets yet? I'm fighting you in the third round."

"Thanks, I'll check that out."

Cloud spoke again. "That explains your friend, but I don't believe for a second that you could be here just for the prize."

"Don't be so suspicious Cloud. You're half right though. I do have other reasons for being here besides the prize, although one wish can go a long way."

"I'm in a rush, so if there's nothing else, I'll be going. See you in the fights, I guess," said Cloud.

Sephiroth nodded. He walked past Cloud and then stopped when he was an inch away from him he said one last thing.

"I'm sure you _are_ in a rush. After all, I'm sure Aeris wants to see you."

And then as quickly as he appeared, Sephiroth ran off faster then Cloud's eyes could catch him. Ganondorf grunted and walked away, and that was the end of it. All that was left after it was over was the shock of it all, and that wouldn't subside for Cloud for days. end 3

After a while they started walking back to Sieg's office. The mood was solemn and both were lost in thought until, like a light switch turning on, a thought hit Cloud.

He turned to Link and asked, "So how do you know Ganondorf?"

Link hesitated a bit at first to collect his thoughts.

"He….He was Ganondorf, the King of the Gerudos. He's also the legendary prince of power in Hyrule lore."

"What's a 'prince of power'?"

"In Hyrule There is a legend that at some point the King would die without leaving a son to be his heir. When that happened there would be three young persons, each with a marking on the back of their right hand. They were each given titles; The Prince of Power, The Princess of Wisdom, and The Prince of Courage.

The princess will become the queen of Hyrule and the two princes must fight each other in a contest of strength. Only when one admitted superiority to the other would there truly be a new king in Hyrule. A few years ago, the king of Hyrule died, leaving only a daughter. She's fighting in the tournament too, in fact. Princess Zelda, The Princess of Wisdom."

"And Ganondorf is the Prince of power?"

"Right."

"Let me take a wild guess. You're the Prince of Courage."

"How did you guess that?"

"It's because it's the most likely way you would have encountered him, especially considering how involved in Hyrule politics you are."

"Good job then. Well, After the king died, Ganondorf and I were discovered to be the two princes. Oh I forgot to mention that this happened when I was about ten years old."

"You're just remembering that now?"

"Well there's a reason for that…I'll explain in a second. Anyways, when I tried to fight him, at first he nearly killed me. If he was at all worried about me winning he would have killed me in a single blow. But before I admitted defeat, I ran away, and there was no official winner.

After A few months had passed, there was a large amount of chaos in the world of Hyrule. There was no king, and I was missing, so Ganondorf got tired of waiting. He took the crown by force and lead Hyrule to the darkest age in its history. The dead rose from the Earth in the area of Hyrule Castle Town, and the city was abandoned.

Meanwhile, I was studying up on a sword that could give me the power to beat him, and when I finally found it in a temple, I broke a seal that had been placed on it. It froze my body in a form of stasis for seven years until I was old enough to use it."

"So that's what you meant…"

"Right. It's kind of a long story after that, but ultimately I fought Ganondorf in his castle and managed to imprison him in a void between the worlds. However, he didn't admit me to be the winner or die in our fight, so once more Hyrule was without a proper king. So I could only do the one thing I felt allowed to do; I led the rebuilding process. That way of life for Hyrule continued until ten years ago."

"When the portals opened?"

"You're keeping up nicely. The portals released him from his prison, and when that happened, we entered a state of war that lasted for years. …Even after he had exhausted his forces, Hyrule was in a state of global tension until I got my wish. No nation knew if the others had fallen to Ganondorf and his Gerudos.

Remember when I said that the wish did only one thing that set off a chain reaction that saved Hyrule?"

"Yeah."

"That one thing was that Ganondorf was put under a powerful exile spell from Hyrule. The crystal forbadehim from ever going back there."

"And he wants the undo that wish, right?"

"That's where we stand today."

"Okay, thanks Link. I'm going to go ahead and see Sieg now. I'm late."

"Wait! Aren't you going to tell me about that other guy?"

"There's nothing to tell."

Then Cloud ran off, leaving behind a very bewildered Link.

Cloud softly knocked on the door of Sieg's office, and was followed by a polite, "Come in." When Cloud entered, he took a look around. It was very modestly designed with only a few small pictures on a desk and few other personal touches. It was surprising to Cloud, who had never been in there before. Most of Sieg's world, Tantalus, was filled with amazing contraptions and symbols. By comparison, Sieg's room was…empty.

"Sorry I'm late," said Cloud.

"That's okay." said Sieg. "I just finished the gathering device. Are you ready, Cloud? This might not work. And remember, I can only do this if she competes."

"I remember, and I still want to do it."

Sieg nodded and directed Cloud's attention to a blue platform in the back of his office. It was big enough for Cloud to stand on, and it had a large glass enclosure around it. Arranged around it were a few machines that looked similar to the force field generators in the stadium, only much smaller.

"So how does it work?" asked Cloud.

"It's very complicated. In short, it uses the same properties as Spira's Farplane does. It uses your memories of the person and locates the scattered atoms that used to be her soul. Then it will reconstruct her body in a vat filled with a plaster-like material….."He noticed Cloud was about to say something, when he hastily added, "Oh don't worry, it will also reconstruct her with clothes on as long as you remember her in them. It will reconstruct whatever you're thinking of her wearing just like it constructs her body."

"That's good."

"So you just need to think about her and place your hands on this panel right next to the device. After that, the machine will do the rest."

"One thing, Sieg."

"Yeah?"

"Do you have a few minutes after this is all done? I want to talk to you two about something."

"Sure. I'm done with work until tomorrow."

"Great. Then let's begin."

At Sieg's instruction, Cloud put his hands on a black panel and turned his thoughts to Aeris.

"This may hurt a bit Cloud."

'That's okay."

And with that, Sieg flipped the switch and it began.

"A bit" was not how much it hurt. It was continuous and very painful, and seemed to cloud his vision. Cloud was unable to keep his eyes open as Aeris took form. The machines around the platform started shooting out sparks and forming a shell of energy in her shape. In a final flash of light Cloud was pushed by an invisible force to the back of the room.

4 There she was. She was panting softly and her eyes were clouded like she had just woken up, but she was there. She had long, slightly curvy auburn hair and was wearing her favorite pink dress (or at least an imitation of it). Cloud stood there, staring, as she came to consciousness. Even though he knew it was coming, he was still in shock over it all. She was still as beautiful as ever, even though she had been dead for years. There was utter silence until Aeris finally spoke.

"C-Cloud?" she said, looking at him.

"It works… It actually works. I've revived the dead!" Sieg exclaimed as the realization dawned on him.

Finally Cloud worked up the nerve to speak. "Aeris? Can you hear me?"

"Y-yes…I can hear you, Cloud"

Suddenly Aeris snapped into full consciousness and both were hit by the full impact of this event. Cloud took a few steps forward towards Aeris. He then slowly touched her right cheek with the back of his hand, just to make sure she was real. Then they embraced each other they hugged and kissed and they hoped that it would never end. For that one instant they hoped time would just stop. A world without life and death, responsibility and fun. A world with just each other. However, it would end, like all things do.

Aeris put her head on Cloud's chest and he felt a cross between a tingle and a sting right above the area where her head was. He pulled back to find the source of the sensation and felt it go away as soon as Aeris was no longer touching him. He felt the air around Aeris with his fingertips. Finally he felt the air within a few inches of Aeris' head and felt that same tingle. He moved his hand to try to make out the shape of it. He let out a gasp when he saw what it was, an invisible halo. end 4

"Why…?" Asked Cloud, directing the question to Sieg.

"You can feel her soul can't you? This is unfortunate but not unexpected."

"What…?'

"This machine, the 'Galatea' is based on a lot of assumptions I had to make about human life. I was worried that we would end up with a homunculus."

"What's a homunculus?" asked Aeris.

"It's a soulless clump of flesh. It is the size of a human with all the body parts humans have…. But it's…. like they gave you the organs but not in the right placements. They're horrible to look at. Previously that was all revival techniques could create."

"You were worried that was how Aeris would turn out?"

"….I'm sorry Cloud but I tricked you. I needed to test it and I was worried that you would back out if a homunculus was a possibility."

Cloud gritted his teeth a bit and sighed. "It's okay; I probably would have risked it. And it all worked out I think. So what is this halo for?"

"It's a symbol. It means that she is still tied to the afterlife." It's a clock and in a few months……times up."

"Is there anything we can do?"

"Yes there is actually. I know for a fact that the crystal cannot do an outright revival. Believe me, I've tried."

Cloud noticed Sieg take a few minutes to collect himself.

"However, it might be able to sever the link to the afterlife if that's what's wished for. If you win and get the wish, she can be brought back to life proper."

"Ok then. And Aeris is in the tournament too?"

"I am?"

"Yes, it was the best way to validate to usage of the 'Galatea'." Said Cloud. "He was going to use it to revive contestants who die accidental deaths here. I told him how good a fighter you were and that you would be fun to watch in the tournament. That's how I got him to agree to it… or so he told me."

Sieg looked at the ground feeling guilty.

"Well that's okay."

"So then you wanted to talk to me, Cloud?" asked Sieg

"Oh, right. I wanted to ask you if I could see a listing for all the players' names," said Cloud.

"I don't have one. Why?"

"I'm looking for the name of a person who said he was in it."

"I have it all memorized, you can just ask me."

"You do?"

"Yep. I have to look at that thing twenty times an hour." Sieg said with a laugh.

"Okay then. Do you know if there is a competitor named Sephiroth this year?"

Aeris cast a confused look at Cloud with a soft "Wha…?", but Cloud expected that.

What did surprise him however was Sieg's expression.

"You know him!" Cloud asked.

"Yes I do. He was-" Suddenly Sieg hesitated like he changed his mind. "He was the reason I started this tournament. He is a horrible man, and he is one of the most determined men I have seen in my life."

"Why was he the reason you started this?" asked Aeris.

"Well……It's a long, boring story."

"I'm sure." Cloud said sarcastically.

"So how do you know him? Sieg asked.

"He was the one who killed Aeris…." said a somber Cloud.

"What! You said she died in a war."

"It's true. Cloud and I were generals in the great war of Midgar, ten years ago."

"If that's the case I need to ask you a question." said Sieg.

"Shoot." said Cloud blankly.

"There is a theory going around about how the end of the war in Midgar coincided with the creation of the portals. Some wonder if something that happened in that war might have created them. Would you happen to know anything about that?"

"No, I wouldn't."

"Yeah, I expected you to say that."

Cloud glared over to him, but withheld from saying anything.

"So what happened with Aeris?"

"We were on one side of the war and he was on the other."

"Okay then."

"So if he is in the tournament, we are all in big trouble. He is vicious and inhumanly powerful. Not only that, but he also seems to be planning something."

"Perhaps…" said Sieg "But I still find it odd that he didn't compete last year. I wonder what he was waiting for."

"Wait! A thought just came to me." Cloud exclaimed "The speech you made today---"

He would have continued but Sieg knew what he was going to say and cut him off.

"That's right, I talked about that in my speech because I saw that Sephiroth would be competing. Men and women like Sephiroth accomplish great things; things that change the way the world works. Being good is not a prerequisite of being great. If Sephiroth is planning something big, then it will encompass the whole universe."

"We can only hope that it all works out for the best."

There was an awkward silence before Cloud finally said "Well, that's what I wanted to ask you, so I will go now."

"Okay... Oh, right, I almost forgot." said Sieg, followed by Cloud turning back to him. "There is someone I want you and Link to meet. He's an old associate of mine, Vaan Emmerich. He's a PhD from earth."

Sieg found it odd, but Cloud's expression changed almost instantly. The complex expression that combined terror and suppressed anger that he had in their last conversation had vanished. In its place was the warm and fun expression that he always seemed to have; one only broken by their discussions on Aeris' revival over the past year.

"What does he want to meet us for?"

"Vaan bet on your fights, especially Link's, extraordinarily well. So well in-fact, that he made a few hundred-thousand because of you and your friends. Since he's a friend of mine, I thought I'd abuse my power a bit and introduce you. I guess he wants to thank you formally."

"Sound's fine. When are you moving all of us to our new lodging?" Cloud asked.

"Around seven. Why?"

"Then can you send us to him around six-thirty. We agreed to meet a bit before we had to leave."

Sieg agreed to this and Cloud started to turn around to leave with Aeris, but before he could, Sieg had one last question for him.

"I'm just curious… How long were you married to Aeris before she was killed?"

"A bit more then five years, I think. Why do you ask?"

"As I said I was just curious…" and as Cloud turned away to leave again, Sieg said "It must have been nice, being married since you were _twelve_."

Suddenly Cloud's eyes flashed open. He shuddered a bit as the realization of his slip-up dawned on him. "Oh, damnit." He said under his breath.

"Thought so." Sieg said cockily. "You, Sephiroth, and Aeris. Something happened between you three, that much is obvious. So are you going to tell me or not?"

Cloud turned to look at him, and looked more deathly serious then Sieg had ever seen him before. Cloud stared him straight in the eyes and said, in as quiet a voice as he could get without whispering, "I don't know what happened between you and Sephiroth, but I can beat it. I don't know what you know about him, but I know more. He may involve the whole world in his affairs, but first and foremost he is _my_ problem, and no one else's. So before you delve deeper into it, don't. And trust me, you don't want to be involved, even less so as involved as I am. So take my advice; drop it."

Cloud stared at him for a while until he saw Sieg's nod of agreement, and Cloud hastily left with Aeris, leaving Sieg to contact Vaan. They decided to go somewhere where they could be alone, and enjoy each others' company. If he failed to win, they might not get another chance. When he found a quiet enough place he gave her a kiss and held her close, ignoring the tingle. Then he made himself a silent promise. "I won't let him take her away again. I won't let him take anyone away again."

It was around six-fifteen when Cloud saw Link with the others. He seemed to be explaining how the new lodging and stadium rules would work. Cloud walked over to them with Aeris behind him. He greeted the others when Mario noticed Aeris.

"And who is this lovely girl you have with you?" He asked.

He hesitated to choose his words carefully. He didn't want a slip up like last time.

"S-she's my….wife." he said.

The whole table gasped in shock (with the exception of Mario who could only get out a "Your wha?") over this new development.

"What's the story with that?" asked Link. "You never told me you were married."

"Well, the reason for that is because she died a few years ago."

If they were in shock before, they were completely lost now. Sonic nearly fainted. It took a while, but Chrono, generally being the calmest, finally worked out the obvious question. "If she died, how is it that she's here now?"

"Sorry, but I've been sworn to secrecy. I'll just say that this is what I've been working on with Sieg for the past year."

They all clamored in annoyance. Arguing about how he's leaving them dangling before a voice in that background spoke loudly above their voices.

5 "You know… this whole argument is pointless. Sieg dropped the NDA(non-disclosure agreement)."

They turned to the voice. It came from a man a few feet away from the table. He was around six feet tall, and had a medium build. He was wearing Earthen clothing which was rather unusual due to the low amount of Earthlings that ventured outside their world. His dark hair had a very slight curl and offset his crimson eyes. That was what was most noticeable about him, his eyes.

Cloud was a firm believer that you could tell a lot from someone's eyes. When he looked in Sephiroth's eyes he could see burning anger with a passionate, and fearsome, determination. With Aeris's eyes he could see all the kindness the world had to offer, and in Link's there was a powerful sense of honor. In this stranger's eyes he could see many things. Kindness was fairly prominent, but among it was a passion for life and a desire for love. He could see pain, friendship, wisdom, and a lingering sense of doubt, as well as many more things that Cloud had never seen before in any one person. So many things lay behind those inhumanly calm eyes that Cloud couldn't even grasp all of it. In truth, no matter how impressed he was by it, he was mostly horrified.

He walked over to them with a soft smile and said "You're Link's group, right? My name is Vaan Emmerich. I'm Sieg's friend."

"You're Vaan! I thought you were a PhD? You can't be older then twenty," said Cloud.

"I'm nineteen, and yes I am I PhD in Mechanical science."

"Excuse me, but what business do you have with us?" Asked an unusually formal Chrono.

"I was just about to tell you that a friend of Sieg's wanted to meet us. I guess this is him."

"Didn't I already say that?" Vaan asked with a smirk. Then he turned to Link and said "It's nice to finally meet you, Link."

"What did you want to meet me for?" Link asked.

"Why don't you explain over diner," recommended Cloud. end 5

He agreed and they all had diner. They talked about many things, like how Vaan won his money. The talked about last years fights, and this years competitors. Eventually, Vaan told everyone else about 'Galatea' and Aeris' revival. Their discussions lasted right up to the moment the helicopters arrived to take them to their cabins. Once everyone except Link and Cloud were on their helicopters, Link turned to Cloud and said:

"So what do you make of him?"

"You mean Vaan? What do you mean what do I make of him? I trust him, in any case… But there's something there I can't quite place. I might just be imagining things." Cloud said slowly.

"Well, if you trust him, then I guess he's okay." Link said uncertainly.

They both got on their helicopters and set out to their homes for the duration of the tournament. When Link finally got to his cabin an hour later, he went right to his room and fell asleep, not even noticing that he had a roommate. He knew he was fighting first tomorrow morning (Vaan had shown them the brackets), and he wanted to rest. He also knew that the start of the fights would be the start of something big, and that tomorrow would be the first day of the rest of his life, and that things would never be the same.

**_Next Chapter_**

_We are warriors, and because of that fact, we fight. The tournament begins now, and so dose our war. A man with a sword, a fighter with a past, and that roar. A bloody roar that can be heard for miles will be called, signifying the beginning of the end. _

_Next time: "The Roar of Vengeance"._

_To every end, there is a beginning._


	2. The Roar of Vengeance

**Act one: Suspicion**

Chapter 2: The Roar of Vengeance

Link woke up the next morning to the sound of a stranger's voice. As the sat up and rubbed the last bits of sleep from his eyes he noticed the person who woke him and jumped back a bit (if you could call it that, as he was sitting down). He was a half man, half fox hybrid, with brown fur all over his body (despite this, he was wearing human clothing) and a face exactly like a foxes. He was standing on two legs, but besides that the only physical features he could tell that wasn't almost entirely fox-like were his opposable thumbs.

Link quickly calmed down a bit and said, "I'm sorry, that was rude of me"

"Naw, don't worry about it. I would have been started if you were the first thing I saw in the morning too. It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm your roommate, Fox McCloud. Your Link, right?"

"Yeah, that's me. It's nice to meet you Fox."

"I wanted to tell you that your fight is gonna be starting early this morning so you might want to wake up early too."

"Err, yeah thank you…..Fox, right?. Anyways, I'm going to get ready, do you know what we supposed to do for breakfast here?"

"This cabin's stocked with food, I was just about to make eggs, you want some?"

"Sure, thank you."

Later that day, Link and Fox were at the stadium, so Link could introduce him to Cloud and the others. It was a large, round stadium similar to the main one, only a bit smaller. However as Link got closer he noticed a few other differences. The stadium had multiple relieves engraved into its exterior, most noticeably a gigantic turtle at the top. Finally there was a bit of writing on top of the main entrance, "Genmu Stadium".

"Hey, Link!", yelled the familiar voice of Cloud. He was accompanied by everyone from yesterday, including Vaan.

"Hey, Cloud. Hey guys." He said as Fox and himself walked over to them "Oh! Err.. this is Fox McCloud. He's my roommate and I thought I would introduce him."

After formalities were over Chrono spoke up in his usual, passive tone, "It looks like the stadium's filling up, you better get going."

" That's right. By the way," Link added, turning to Fox. "When is your fight, Fox."

"Right after yours. I'm going second"

"Wait, doesn't that mean I'm fighting you in the second round?" asked Link.

"Yeah, I guess it does."

A bit of awkward silence passed before Link finally said, "Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I'll see you all in a bit." Then he ran off towards the field.

As Link walked toward the ring, he felt the familiar presence of Ganondorf lurking nearby and calmly called out to him. Ganondorf matched Link voice with his movements as he moved out of the shadows. Ganondorf was, quite frankly, big. He was a great deal larger then Link, and the giant broad sword he always carried around with him was twice the size of Link's prized Master Sword. He was wearing the studded leather portion of his black-as-night armor and a torn cape, making him seem even fiercer then his size did already. Finally, and most importantly, were his Gerudo borne dark green skin and fiery orange hair.

"What do you want, Gannon?" Link

"I just wanted to wish you luck." said Ganondorf. "I'm looking forward to challenging you once and for all for the crown of Hyrule. Although I doubt you need it for this lowlife. Save your energy, you're going to need it."

"I'll protect Hyrule from anything that seeks to hurt it, even you." said Link

Ganondorf just smiled and said "I'm sure you could, but that's why I've teamed with Sephiroth. Heaven and Hell could rise up against him and he would still win."

With that, Ganondorf cast a spell and vanished from Links sight. All Link could do was walk toward the ring and try to brush it off.

"So how do you think Links going to do?" Vaan asked Cloud.

"It will be an easy fight."

"I wish I was as confident as you. AiAi has a great resume for this. I know Link one the tournament last year but-"

"I've seen AiAi type. I doubt there will even be a real battle."

"What do you mean?"

"You don't know Link like I do, just wait."

Link listened to the announcer talk about him and his opponent as he walked to the stadium.

"Welcome to the first fight of this year's 'Best beyond the Stars' tournament. My name is Kuja Lansford and I will be announcing tournament rulings to the players and the audience in the stands as well as describe the fights to those at home, or couldn't get to the stadium under the new seating rules.

I could go on about myself but I'm sure your more interested in these competitors. Let's go into their bios.

First off is last years winner, Link; a 1st seed. Link, or as he is known to his fans The Hyrulian Knight, is the winner of the last tournament, and is back to defend his crown. Speaking of which, I should also mention the fact the he is the Unofficial leader of Hyrule's main race, the Hylians, which have been trying to crown him king, despite his unusual reluctance to accept. I don't know why he denies the crown of Hyrule, but he has still done some great work in the position he's in.

Next we have the Bubble Fist of Afrkia, AiAi; a 16th seed. He is the world champion of his world and a master of a form of magic called Induced Tension Transmutation. I don't know exactly what it is, but from his title, I have a few suspicions."

As he was talking, Link noticed that the ring itself has about a dozen large rocks on it. "So that's what he meant by 'slight differences.'" he thought to himself.

The announcer had finished his announcements and Link noticed his opponent on the opposite side of the stadium. He was raggedy and savage. He was wearing a smirk on his face that Link couldn't help but cringe at. It was obvious to Link that he was one of those overconfident fools that Cloud had made a note of the previous day.

"Begin!" yelled the announcer, which caught the distracted Link slightly off guard. Then the first fight of the second annual "Best Beyond the Stars" tournament began.

Instead of charging at him, like Link expected, the monkey man walked a little closer to him and said. "This is the winner of last year's fights? I'm not impressed. You're just a generic knight with a dingy sword." Link stood there perfectly expressionless as he loosely held his sword in his hand and took his comments. "The great Hyrulian Knight, What a joke. Do you know who I am?"

"No."

"Figured as much. Let me fill you in. I am the great AiAi, The Bubble Fist of Afrkia. I have perfectly mastered the art of the force of nature known as surface tension. I can create bubble's from the moister in the air. You might think that's silly, but I can add as much moisture to one bubble as a want, making them much stronger then normal.

On top of that, I can send them flying anywhere at hundred miles an hours. You won't even get close to me, and even if you did…well, let's just say there's a reason for the 'Fist' in my title.

You think you are so much more then you are, but in truth, you are weak. You are a weakling and I will take you out of this fight in a second."

Link started laughing, much to the distaste of AiAi. In a rage he summoned a giant bubble. He launched it at link at an incredible speed, with bloodlust in his eyes and a determination to humiliate the former champ. The bubble didn't even touch Link.

1 As the bubble burst toward him at an unbelievable velocity, Link didn't even look at it. He felt the hatred of his opponent in it, and can tell where it is without thinking. As another bubble of clarity burst in his heart, he reacted on a defense reflex. A shield of energy incased Link and popped the bubble with ease. It's a reflex; it took no effort. Another bubble, this one of concentration formed in his soul, and for the first time, he directly addressed AiAi.

"I am a warrior, both in body and mind and I am one with this blade. It's an extension of my heart and soul. To insult it is to insult me. To call me weak like you are is a petty mind game, played only by true weaklings. If you're truly powerful you would not need to insult your opponent."

He waved his sword around and truly showed it to AiAi. He poured his heart and feelings into his blade. It became a part of him, and he became the blade. With his blade and soul synchronized like this, the blade shone with a bright yellow light. It was a luminescent masterpiece of the craft, with a blade made from a blend of silver and titanium.

The hilt was built from sky metal, and was every color at once. Purples, greens, blues, and reds all melded together in a way that it was indiscernible where one color began and another color ended. To anyone how saw it, it was a magnificent work of art, and it was a part of him as much as the hand that held it.

Then Link began to move towards AiAi.

Link's focused and cool expression greatly contrasted the gnarling and growingly panicked look of AiAi. Link walked forward in a way that made it seem like each step had a millennia's worth of power in it. It was then that AiAi truly knew what Link was: a human typhoon.

It was Link's masterpiece, and it was what got him Ganondorf's respect. Behind his chivalrous exterior was the raw confidence that it was indiscernible from cock-eyed optimism, until you see it walking to you. When you look at Link like this, it seems as though he is standing between you and the rest of the universe. All you can do is beg, and hope that his chivalry is more then just an act. Link knew this, and that's why he knew he won this fight the moment he stepped onto the field.

"I don't want to waste my blade on you. So I will make a deal with you." Link said calmly. AiAi nodded and Lick continued, "If I am wrong about you, you win this fight. If I am right, you surrender. It's actually very simple." He finally stopped walking, much to AiAi's relief. The relief was short lived though, as Link lunged his sword at AiAi's throat, just barely stopping short.

"Look me in the eyes, and tell me I'm weak again."

AiAi look right at Link, with the sword hovering by is throat. His mentality was crushed and compressed by the sheet of cold terror that had formed due to Link. He could only chug out a "…gah…" before Link asked again.

"Well? Call me weak again! Do it!" Link was finally yelling.

AiAi collapsed on the spot, defeated. This was Link's masterpiece, the power to win without fighting. He would be on a battlefield and his presence would weaken enemies and give strength to allies. Link hated fights without purpose. Because of this power, he never had to do it again.

Link helps people with his power, and it makes him happy to do it. This is how Link sees his life, and why he does what he does.

A few minutes later Link rejoined the group. "That was amazing." Vaan said, "I followed your fights last year and you were never like that before."

"I have something to prove this time."

"What was that?"

Link very subtlety sized up Vaan again before saying "Just that I was still a force to be reckoned with to someone in the stands. Where's Fox?"

"His fight begins any second now. He wanted me to congratulate you though." said Cloud.

Almost on cue, he heard the announcer go, "BEGIN!" in his loudest possible voice. Link hadn't even noticed the announcer's pre-fight speech.

Fox's opponent was a large yellow rodent seemingly from a planet Link had never heard of. He leaped around the battlefield launching electric bolts from an alien gland and firing them at Fox. Fox very carefully leaped from each bolt until finding cover behind one of the large rocks on the battle field. After a few seconds of pounding the rock with a focused lightning strike the rock exploded. Fox leaped out from the rock just before then and fired a volley of blaster shots on the little rodent. A few direct hits ended that fight pretty quickly.

Link went down to the ring to congratulate Fox on his victory. After a few words of encouragement, Link noticed three people walking towards them. The first was a man around Link's age with blond hair and a feminine face. He was wearing some light armor and had a sword on his back. Link thought he was one of the fighters in the tournament. To the left of him was a pretty woman with a slightly pale face and dark brown hair. Link also noticed that her eyes had two different colors; one was blue, and the other green. Behind them was a man is his forties wearing red armor and sunglasses.

The blonde haired man approached Link and said, "Hey. Nice to meet you, I'm Tidus. This is my friend Auron, and my girlfriend, Yuna.

"It's a pleasure to meet you" said Yuna politely, and Auron nodded as if to give the same gesture.

"Nice to meet you too." said Link slowly. "I'm Link and this is Fox. Can we help you?"

"No, not really" said Tidus with an embarrassed laugh. You see we're all fighters in this tournament and my fight is up next. We were all walking to the ring when we saw you. I wanted to congratulate you on your incredible match."

"Oh." said Link, now starting to calm down. Then he came to a realization. "You're up next? Is your opponent named Ganondorf by any chance?"

"Err…. Yes, I think he is. Why?"

"I know Ganondorf very well. He is a powerful and dangerous warrior. Please be careful when fighting him."

"Don't underestimate me; I won my way into this contest just like everyone else. But I'll keep in mind what you said, ok? Oh, Its almost ten minutes after your match ended, I have to get going." he said, gesturing at Fox.

Link and Fox got to their seats with the others about ten floors up. They got there when Kuja was midway thru introducing the next fight.

"-an acclaimed guardian of Spiran summoners, he hopes to make an impact at this year's tournament.

Next up is the enigmatic Ganondorf Dragmire. He was born in Hyrule but his current location is unknown. Actually, Now that I'm looking at it, I don't have much of anything on him. All I know are his grades at the prelims, and that shows that we are talking about a skilled fighter.

The seedings for these two fighters were pretty close, so I would say we're in for an interesting fight, but you don't want to hear me rant on. One the count of three… One. Two. Three. BEGIN!"

2The fight began with Tidus charging at Ganondorf at full speed. When he reached him he slashed at him with all he might. Ganondorf deflected the attack but Tidus twisted his body and turned the recoil into a powerful lunge that Ganondorf just barely deflected.

"Hit and Run!" Tidus yelled as he called on a technique that had him running around and hitting his opponent at random. He jumped from left to right slashing at Ganondorf as he ran. The first 5 hits were dodged or parried. On the sixth attack Ganondorf decided to go on the offensive. He dodged Tidus' attack (which was a leap from the front this time) and swung at him with the blunt side of his broadsword. The attack hit and sent him flying a few meters before landing on his feet. He was mildly injured but he just managed to get a flesh wound on Ganondorf with his blade, much to the discomfort of Ganondorf.

Ganondorf felt the cut and touched it with is hand and took a look at the blood, to make sure it was real. He looked at it, almost curious, and then formed his bloody hand into a fist.

"Not bad, boy. You managed to get a flesh wound on me. A few more like that and I might need to use my two handed style. Keep at it, let's see where this goes."

"Works for me."

The two charged at each other, sword in attack position. They clashed in the center of the ring. It was fast and rough as the two exchanged blows, most of which were seamlessly parried. Tidus was weaker in many areas but made up for it with an incredible speed. Ganondorf theorized that he had a white magic effect on him. After a bit like this Tidus rolled around to Ganondorf's backside to try and get at him but was still deflected, leading into another bout like the first one.

Tidus didn't have the endurance that Ganondorf had, and was wearing out. He fell back and ran off to the biggest rock he could find to rest and rethink his strategy. As he nursed his wounds he heard Ganondorf yell something, which was followed by an explosion that sent Tidus to the ground.

Tidus jumped to his feet to find the rock destroyed and Ganondorf's palm out, facing it's remains. It took a second for it to sink in, but ultimately he figured it out.

"You're a warlock!"

Without a response, Ganondorf began an onslaught of magic attacks. Balls of thunder, fire, dark energy, and much more burst out of Ganondorf's hands at his will. Tidus desperately avoided each blast, but each hit came closer then the last. Explosions happened left and right as the stadium around Tidus was torn asunder.

"Luminus!" Ganondorf called out, and a ball of lightning zipped from Ganondorf to Tidus. Tidus jumped back but was hit on his side by a second spell that sent him to the ground.

Tidus got up, this time looking a little worse for wear. Suddenly, he had an idea.

He let his aura overtake him and move to his fingertips, chanting "slow, slow, slow." as a mantra in his head. He released that power at Ganondorf who was caught off guard.

"So it _is _Time Magic!" Ganondorf exclaimed as the spell took hold of him. He was a powerful enough mage to shake off the spell, but it would take a few seconds, and Tidus was not wasting any time.

"Quick Hit!" Tidus yelled, as he ran towards Ganondorf with magically enhanced speed. As Ganondorf struggled with the time spell, Tidus decided to try to finish it in one attack. Tidus prepared his Blitz Ace attack and reached Ganondorf just as he freed him self from the slow spell. Ganondorf was free but couldn't straighten himself out completely in time for the attack. He just barely blocked the first three attacks but hit the fourth one at a bad angle. Ganondorf's sword was sent flying and Ganondorf got the brunt of the remaining four attacks.

After the last of the eight attacks Tidus went for the "coup de grace" attack. He ducked down in front of Ganondorf And went for an easily block able uppercut punch. Then, he suddenly twisted his body around and hit Ganondorf with a hard round house to the face. Ganondorf was complete taken off guard and was sent flying into the distant wall face first. The impact left a fairly large hole in the wall, with Ganondorf lying crookedly in the rubble. End 2

3 Ganondorf slowly stood up from the wreckage. His sword still on the ground, he looked at Tidus with a fire in his eyes that made Tidus recoil. He picked up his giant sword and, for the first time in this fight, held in with both hands. Tidus charged with all his strength at Ganondorf, hoping to finish him off before he could do anything. Tidus attacked Ganondorf but he reflected the attack and pushed Tidus back a few yards. Ganondorf ran after the recovering warrior and attacked him relentlessly.

Tidus was being battered and bruised by Ganondorf's sword, which was now moving twice as fast and hitting three times as powerfully as it was before. Tidus tried to attack back but to no avail, Ganondorf was just too fast. He was a different fighter from what he was before. It was madness! His hope was fading so he took one last shot. He mustered his energy and hit Ganondorf with a delay attack. It slowed him down for a few seconds, which Tidus took to put some distance between him and Ganondorf. 

Ganondorf saw this and sneered. "So then, you are going to run? Well then try to dodge this!" he said. He raised his arms and started forming a huge, horribly black spell above his head. He lifted into the air slowly as the spell took on form. Tidus could only watch horrified as Ganondorf lifted off the ground and prepared his attack. Ganondorf's levitation reached its zenith and he prepared to throw the spell. Tidus snapped himself out of his state of horror and used all his strength to jump up and slash at Ganondorf while he finished the spell. Ganondorf threw the spell at him at point blank range. It caused such a giant explosion that there would have been injuries in the stands, had there not been force fields in place.

The smoke cleared and Link saw the results of the fight. Ganondorf stood over Tidus, who looked very beat up. Ganondorf overflowed with adrenaline and stared at the half-dead Tidus in the rage. He took a few long, deep breaths in and began to approach Tidus, his sword held up high. Link stared confused for a half second before he realized that Ganondorf was going for a coup de grace attack and without thinking ran past ten rows to the stadium. He reached the banister and yelled out as loud as he could to get Ganondorf's attention.

"GANON!" he yelled, "Don't kill him, please. You've already won this fight……" Link shuddered in fear and tried to think of non-verbal ways out. In desperation he yelled out, "If you kill him you'll never get your shot at me!" Those words seemed to affect Ganondorf and he stopped for a second to consider. After what seemed like an eternity he finally dropped his sword. The fight was over and medic's rushed in to treat Tidus. Ganondorf just left, looking as nonchalant as ever. End 3

Link ran up the stairs to his seat, and took a moment to compose himself. Then he said, "I'm going to go visit Tidus in the med lab. I met him before his fight and want to make sure he's ok."

"I'll come with you." said Cloud. "If Ganondorf is allied with Sephiroth then who knows how much he could have hurt him."

"Why don't we all go, considering that in a few fights they'll be on the mid-division break?"

Everyone nodded in agreement except for Chrono who said, "I'm sorry, but I'm going to stay here. One of my closest friends is up next and I want to see him fight. I'm very sorry."

"Don't worry about it, it's ok." said Aeris.

"Thanks." Said Chrono, not really looking anyone in the eye.

Link started rushing everyone to the med lab so they all left. After they broke away from the crowd and left the stadium Link, who was in front of the others, noticed Cloud was quickening his pace to catch up to him. He caught up to Link and tilted his head slightly towards Link and said, "You shouldn't blame yourself for things Ganondorf does." Link said nothing.

The nine of them all entered the med lab, where they were told to wait in the waiting room. After about an hour of waiting, Vaan was busy introducing himself to Auron while the others did their things. Cloud brooded and Link tried comforting Yuna. Mario, Fox, and Sonic were talking franticly about the fight, trying to figure out what happened, and Aeris wandered around the room. Auron was about to say something after a short pause, but just then the doctor came in.

"Hello, I'm Dr. Jeff Frasier, the head doctor on all of Mr. Kasumi's projects. I'm happy to inform you that Tidus is going to be fine. All his bones are being mended, and he only suffered a few major injuries. You won't be able to see him today, unfortunately. He needs to sleep. You can see him tomorrow morning."

Upon hearing the good new the tension in Link seemed to lift up a bit. Everyone was feeling a bit calmer, so Cloud recommended that they go back to see the rest of the fights.

"Actually, the fights have been on break for a while now. They'll start back up around sundown." said, Dr. Frasier.

"Well, in that case let's all go find Chrono." said Vaan. Everyone agreed except Cloud who was having a whispered conversation with Aeris. Finally it stopped and the both nodded in agreement to each other. Cloud turned and said to the group, "If you don't mind, I would like to spend this time with Aeris."

"Of course. Would you two like to come with us?" he said, turning to Yuna.

"No thank you. We have other things we can do" she said, just now starting to regain her former politeness.

Everyone started to leave, but Auron pulled Vaan back and said to him quietly, "I have a favor to ask of you."

"Yeah, what is it?" Vaan said, matching Auron's tone.

"I have reason to believe that there was some suspicious activity going on during the last fight."

"What?"

"Keep your voice down." Said Auron hastily. "I want to keep this low key until I have something to go on."

"Ok… so what makes you think this?"

"I saw Ganondorf's chart, and I felt the energy in his final spell. He would have needed to have his maximum magical energy to perform it. He wasted to much on barrage of spells during the match. I also saw some strange things with the force field generators around Ganondorf when he was in the rubble. I think that someone diverted power to Ganondorf using those machines."

"But Link told me a bit before we started talking that he knew Ganondorf and that he was much stronger then Tidus. Why would he need to cheat?"

"I don't know. My theory is that Ganondorf underestimated Tidus until it was too late. Someone couldn't risk Ganondorf losing simply because he underestimated his opponent."

"Ok….I'll do what I can to help Tidus. What do you need me to do?"

"You're a friend of Sieg's right? See if you can get files on the force field generator and any personal and fighters you can. Dig through it tonight and tell me anything interesting in the morning."

"All right, I'll do it." said Vaan, and he left to catch up with the others.

Cloud and Aeris found a small park to the south of Tantalus Square where they could relax. It was large, circular field of flowers and in the center was a large tree. They laid down next to the tree and started to talk.

"It's been ten years since the end of the war of Midgar, yet he's still alive. I never should have assumed that the destruction of Midgar killed him, considering it didn't kill me." said Cloud shamefully.

"No, that's just because you're not as obsessed with killing him as you think you are. You were in a new world, and for ten years you planned to revive me, and you found a way." said Aeris.

"But if I don't win the tournament I'll lose you all over again. I need to go though Sephiroth to win this tournament; you know that just as well as I do."

"Then you'll find a way, you always do. Remember Jenora rock? You were outnumbered six to one."

"Yeah, but you came in with reinforcements, and even then..."

"You survived for two years with an injury that would have been fatal to anyone else before we found you."

"It was pure will and determination, two traits that Sephiroth prides himself on."

"You saved Midgar City from a fate a thousand times worse then what it got."

"Yeah, but I still- ", Cloud started to say, but Aeris cut him off with a deep kiss. It caught him off guard and he was tense. He wanted to argue more, he wanted her to understand how worthless his attempts were. He wanted a lot of things. However, something about being with her like this, to feel her touch, it let him relaxed. He realized that they had never really been together at all since Aeris was revived. He relaxed, and kissed back. They stayed like that for a few seconds, or minutes, or hours, he couldn't tell. Aeris pulled back and looked him straight in the face and said, "Say what you want about anything else, but never blame yourself for that. Ever."

"I won't. You're right." Cloud said with a smile.

"You know why I have faith in you? Because I don't think you're as obsessed with Sephiroth as you think you are."

Really? Why not?" said Cloud, now much calmer.

"Because it was fairly obvious that Sephiroth was alive from that blast at Midgar if you were. If you really wanted to find him you would have but instead you rationalized. You made yourself believe that he was dead so you could work on saving me."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"You're missing the point. As soon as you saw that there might be a way to revive me, you did it. You care more about the people you love then getting revenge on Sephiroth. You really are a caring person, even if you don't believe it."

"…I guess your right." said Cloud, now feeling a lot better.

"You'll see this thing through to the end, and if you remain confident in yourself I know it will all turn out for the best."

"Thank you."

Aeris smiled cheerily and said, "Don't mention it. By the way, now that I'm thinking about it, how did you manage to revive me anyways? I mean, I know you revived me with that machine, but you never told me how you came into contact with Sieg."

"Oh? Well, it's actually an interesting story. I was in the capital of Spira, the holy city of Bevelle. I was looking throughout their religion's culture to find a means of reviving you when I saw a giant battle above the city. An Airship was battling a gigantic beast above the city. Bits of the giant monster were raining down on the city and they transformed into small spawn of the monster. I battled them and helped defend the city until the giant monster fell on the city. The city at large was crushed, but luckily I was a few yards away at the time.

Then Chrono came out of the ship and jumped onto the monster, which was still alive. Then I just acted on impulse. I jumped onto that monster and helped Chrono kill it. He was so impressed with my ability to fight that we started talking while his associates cleaned up. I told him about my plight and he told me about Sieg's tournament. You see, he was going to be running a tournament soon, and Sieg had a tendency to invite people who impress him. While it wasn't an official prize, it was likely that if I did well, I would get an audience with Sieg who was, at the time, rumored to be building a machine that could do just that. So I entered last year's tournament.

I fought well and won my way into Sieg's company, and then I described my plight to him. He showed me the plans on Galatea, and we began working on it. It took the whole year, but it obviously worked."

Aeris listened to his story with interest until it was over. She occasionally asked questions, and it later evolved into a conversation, until the finally agreed to stop talking for a bit and just enjoy the time they had together.

4 A few hours passed and Aeris and Cloud stayed together for the entire time. The sun was low in the sky, but not quite setting when they saw someone coming over to them. He was a tall main with blonde hair and a ghostly pale face. His bright blue eyes were surrounded by crimson face paint that imitated tears of blood. He had a face that was reminiscent of a scary clown. He came up to Cloud and Aeris, and gave them some time to stand up before giving a very slight bow.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, my name is Kefka Palazzo. I am an apostle of Sephiroth. But you needed worry; I am not here to fight."

"What do you want?" asked cloud.

"I am merely…..a messenger." Kefka added an ever-so-subtle tinge of malice at the end.

"A message from Sephiroth? What is it?" said Aeris.

"Simply this; 'The second war has begun. Be ready.' I personally don't know what he wants to tell you this for, but Sephiroth wants what he wants."

"I wanted to tell them, Kefka, because of my desire for a fair fight." said a voice from a few meters behind Kefka. Now Sephiroth himself was walking over to them, followed by Ganondorf, and someone else. The mystery man had a demeanor about him the reminded Cloud of a dragon. His short orange hair looked blasted back and his face looked seem to have various scars and anomalies on it. His eyes were neon green and slit-like. His long trench coat covered most of his body with ease, save for his unnaturally long fingers.

Cloud Turned away from the mystery man and turned to Sephiroth. "You want a fair fight?"

"Ok, I'll be frank." Said Sephiroth in a voice that was unusually natural for him. "I've been busy for a very long time. After ten years of no major action, I want to turn this into a bit of a game. I know it's rather conceited of me, but I want to give you a fighting chance, purely for my amusement."

"So you're helping me win this…. 'game'?"

"No, I'm just telling you the rules. There are four of us, the legion of Sephiroth known as Seele. If you want to match us, I recommend you start preparing."

"Preparing?" said Aeris.

"Yes. This is a war game. So tell me this, what's the first thing you do in a war game?"

Cloud stared at Sephiroth for a few seconds before Sephiroth said, "Ok, that's it then. Come on, Kefka. And you too Bowser, I'm sorry, but you won't be fighting till tomorrow it after all it seems."

A few seconds past, and when Sephiroth was finally out of sight, Aeris turned the Cloud and said, "Do you have any idea what he meant by that?"

"Yeah, I know exactly what he meant. It's a chess analogy. What's the first thing you do when you start a game of Chess?"

"…I don't know what exactly you're referring to. The first move you make?"

"No, before the battles of the chess game even begin, you need to get your pieces and put them on the board. Sephiroth is telling me to rally troops." end 4

Back at Genmu Stadium, Vaan and the others were watching the ending of a fairly quick and boring fight when Chrono saw Cloud and Aeris approaching their seats. It was dusk now, and the lights of the stadium brightly lit up the ring. Cloud walked up to Chrono and the others and greeted them before taking their seats. "Sorry for being late." Said Cloud.

"Don't worry about it. Did you have fun?" asked Vaan.

"Err, yeah. We found a park and sat together for a while. So anything interesting going on here?"

"Well, that last fight just finished, It was rather mundane, really." said Link.

"My friend won though." said Chrono. "His name's Magus. He'll be joining us tomorrow to watch the fights."

"So then he'll be fighting Ganondorf then?" said Link.

"Yeah but….trust me, Magus is not Tidus. I'm not saying he'll win for sure, but it's not going to end the way the last one did."

Link just gave a sigh before Cloud continued, "So were there any other good fights?"

"Not really, the only one worth watching was Jill Valentine versus Squall Leonhart and there's only one more fight today." said Mario.

Well, In that case I need to tell you somth-" Cloud started but was cut of by Sonic. "What's going on down there?" he said, pointed a few rows down and to the left.

He was looking at a large verbal argument between two older teenage boys, both around seventeen. Chrono and the other's couldn't hear what they were saying, but there body movements and facial expressions told them that they were both ready to fight each other. Eventually they stopped, and the one with blond hair stormed off to the ring.

"I wonder what that was about?" said Vaan.

"That doesn't matter, look over there Cloud. It's the man we met yesterday."

Cloud and the rest of the group looked over at Sephiroth, who was surrounded by three lackeys. They were all looking and the fight with more interest then anyone else and Sephiroth definitely had a slight smile on his face.

"Bowser!" Mario exclaimed. Everyone just looked at him, mostly confused, but Cloud, Link, and Aeris were shocked.

"How do you know him?" Link asked.

"He was my peer a very long time ago at the Phoenix Flame Martial Arts Academy but... what's he doing here? And who are those people?"

"I know who they are…… the man with the long hair is Sephiroth, he was the one who killed Aeris in the war of Midgar ten years ago. There is a lot of history there. We have been battling each other most of our lives, and now that he's at this tournament, he is a very dangerous foe to everyone here. Those around him are, Ganondorf, Kefka, and, of course, Bowser. You already know all that much about Kefka; he's the one in the clown getup. I guess if you want to know about Bowser, you'll have to ask Mario."

Everyone just stared at him in silence for a bit, and then he continued. "The reason I'm telling you this is that by being around me, your sure to be involved. I know I should have told you yesterday, but I was scared of revealing Sephiroth to you all. The horrors that occurred during my battles with Sephiroth during the war of Midgar are unfathomable. I don't want it to start again, but I know see that there is no escape from it. Hanging around me is very dangerous right now. If you don't want to be involved, leave me, and you'll be better off for it."

"Don't be so melodramatic." Said Vaan with a scoff. "I can't do much, but I'm in for this. Besides, I can't fight so I doubt I'd get hurt anyways."

"I'm in, of course." Said Link, followed by Mario.

"I'm not going to let some silver haired pretty boy decide what I do, I'm in." said Fox.

"I'm in. I won't let you turn me down." Said Chrono.

"Well, I'll be damned if I'm going to be the only one of the group leaving, I'm in too." Said Sonic.

Cloud said nothing, he just gave a slight smile and sat down to watch the fight that was about to start.

It turned out the blonde haired kid from the fight was fighting in this round against Samus Aran, the tournament's top female fighter. She wore a suit so filled to the brim with weapons; she was practically a walking tank. Going up against the low tech sword and magic style of the blond kid, named Isaac, it was a surprisingly close fight. Isaac dodged the missiles with ease, and managed to get a few good shots in before a point blank shot from a super missile did him in.

The announcer, Kuja, gave some final announcements for the day and everyone packed up and when to their cabins, Vaan just happened to be stationed in the south division lodging, which was where Mario and Chrono were. So after he made a quick stop to see Sieg, they all were going to meet before they went to bed, however Vaan turned to them and said, "I'm sorry, but I'm turning in a bit early tonight." He left quickly, and was very lucky that neither Chrono, nor Mario, noticed the large amount of papers in his hand.

Cloud entered Seiryu Stadium the next morning with Aeris and set out to find the others. His fight was only in a few minutes and he needed to hurry and get his friends all together before it started. He entered the stands and saw the ring for the first time. The hard wasteland from the north division's Genmu Stadium was replaced with a small rainforest. The ring was visible, but on top of it were various trees and other fauna. There was a ten-foot ring in the center with just grass on it, but the rest was covered in fairly dense woodland. Suddenly he felt a tap on his shoulder, and turned to see everyone there except for Sonic.

"Hey Guys!" said a cheerful cloud.

"Good morning Cloud. And you too, Aeris." said Chrono.

"Where's Sonic? He's in this division too, so we thought he would be with you." said Vaan.

"He's sleeping in this morning; He has the last fight of this division, so his fight isn't till early afternoon." Said Cloud. "Listen, I need to get to the ring, but after you get seats send someone to go get me after the fight, ok?"

The group all nodded and Cloud went down to the ring. An escort led him and his opponent, CATS, to the center grassland that Cloud noticed earlier. Cloud sized up his opponent, but it was hard to tell. He looked strong enough, but it wasn't overly showy, like AiAi was so it was hard to tell if he actually had some decent skills or not. Once they had both entered the ring, Kuja started the announcements.

"Welcome to the third day of the 'Best Beyond the Sun' tournament, I'm Kuja, and this is the East Division. Our first fighter is a fan favorite, Cloud Strife. I have to say that it's obvious why he's a popular choice for the winner this year. He's standing there and obviously knows what he's doing; he must have the biggest sword I've ever seen. It weighed in at over a hundred pounds. He's in armor, but it's not tacky or obtrusive, and just to look cool, it seems, his arm is covered with a glove that goes up past his elbow. His noted works include a general in a war and a leader in the attempts to rebuild the ruins of the cities lost in that war. Last time he was here he made it to the 4th round, so let's see how far he goes this time.

Next up is CATS, an interesting warrior from Zeronus. He is another general in a war. He is fairly well known for many great military victories. His armor and weapons are mostly cybernetic making this a sword vs. laser gun fight that never would have happened before the universe opened.

Now that that's over with, let's begin the next division. On the count of three, you may begin. One. Two. Three. BEGIN!"

CATS held his ground while Cloud charged at him with his sword out in front. CATS launched a barrage of blaster shots at Cloud but all of them were easily dodged or blocked with the sword. Cloud reached CATS and ducked under one last shot before giving him a series of kicks that landed him face first a few feet away. Cloud ran over and placed the sharp tip of his sword a few inches away from CAT's neck, so he couldn't move without killing him self. This was called in the tournament rule book "The Swordsman's Victory". Cloud had won the match in 30 seconds.

Cloud made sure CATS was okay before quietly leaving the ring. He looked around the entrance to the ring from the stands, but didn't see anyone he knew. Instead, he saw a man he recognized, but couldn't quite place his remember where, walking greeting him.

"Hello Cloud, My name is Auron. Do you remember me?"

He hesitated for a second before saying, "Oh yeah, you were at the med lab. You're a friend of Tidus', right?"

"That's right. I wanted to tell you that I had a friend of mine check something for me about that fight, and the fight after mine, which is next, should prove his theory. It's the Bowser vs. Ness fight. I want you to meet me at the start of the mid-division break."

"What for?"

"Because my partner in this investigation seems to think that you would want to know about this, however I want to wait until we have more solid evidence, which is going to come from that fight if it comes from anywhere."

"Alright, I'll meet you then. By the way, my associate told me to tell you that your friends are sitting in row 5F."

"Really? Who is it?"

"….There are ears everywhere in this stadium, some of them could be listening in. I don't want to get him move involved then he needs to be, I'll just say that You'll figure it out when you go meet your friends."

"Ok. Good luck with you fight. I'm going to go meet them now."

"Ok, I'll see you later."

Cloud took a while to find his seat, by the time he got there, Kuja was already in the middle of announcements. He looked over to the others, all of whom were congratulating him. Mario was sitting closest to him and was shaking his hand, and Aeris was a few feet away, beaming at him. He noticed that, along with Sonic, Vaan was not there.

"Where did Vaan go?" asked Cloud.

"Didn't you see him?" said Fox. "He said he was gonna go tell you where we were, and then go do something for a friend of his."

"Ah, he got his friend to tell me where you were."

"Well, why'd he do that?", Fox started to say but was then by Cloud, who wanted to get off the subject.

"Hey look, the fight started." Cloud didn't want to go more deeply into where Vaan was, because he already thought he knew. On the right Auron was having a fairly easy time from a short fighter, who looked like he was one of Sonic's universe's many races. Weapons flashed for a while before Auron finally won, only once or twice entering the forest around the central ring.

After Auron's fight ended the six of them all got into light conversation, during which time sonic located the group and rejoined them. A few minutes before Bowser's fight due to start, Aeris turned to Mario and said, "So what can you tell us about Bowser?"

Mario looked at her for a few seconds before saying, "Well, as I already said, he was my peer at the school where I learned my skills. In a class of fifteen he was by far the best and I was a distant second. I suppose I was a little jealous about it, but we were always on fairly good terms.

A few years after class ended we were working on missions for the dojo. You see, sometimes they would take the best students and employ them to do various mission, such as an assassination, or protection. He was assigned to a dangerous assassination assignment, and failed it. He barely escaped with his life.

After that, he was so ashamed of his failure that he trained inhumanly hard, and delved deeper then anyone into our martial art and……well, if you want to see what happens when you go to deeply into dark powers, you just need him to see him fight."

Just then, Bowser and his opponent, a kid who couldn't have been more then ten years old walk out onto the ring. Kuja began his announcements.

"Welcome to our next fight. This time we have a skilled fighter, Bowser Koopa, of the Mushroom Kingdom." He is a well known master of the Phoenix Flame Martial Arts style and is considered to be a bit of a prodigy.

Next where have, just ten years old, Ness Brown. He is one of those well known 'evolution babies' from ten years ago. Ten percent of children born within a few days of that event gained supernatural powers that were not common to that world. This one is from Earth and has telekinetic abilities. Who will win in this battle? Let's find out. On the count of three… One. Two. Three. BEGIN!"

5 The battle started with Bowser and Ness just standing there talking for a few seconds. Then Bowser's expression changed to something that looked sinister even from the stands. His head drooped down below his shoulders and he started breathing heavily. The air around him seemed to bend and contort, as if it were being superheated. Then Bowser started to get bigger. His fingers became long and claw like and his skin became harder. His feet became reptilian and he dug them deeper into the ground. The air around him burst into flame and surrounded him like an aura. His heavy breathing was now a growl as his face contorted with what looked like scales and horns. His whole body turned a shade of deep orange and his whole body was writhing during the transformation.

Ness stared at the hulking figure, now thirteen feet tall and obnoxiously muscular, with a determined look on his face. He was going to take on this dragon with everything he had. No matter what the risk. Finally the transformation climaxed with the flame aura erupting into a hellfire that engulfed the forest in flame. There, standing where a man once stood was an abomination. He looked at Ness with his slits-for-eyes and growled a bit, releasing superheated air from his mouth.

Bowser looked up at the sky and gave an ear piercing roar. Many people in the stands covered their ears and several children in the area around Cloud started crying. Cloud had a feeling that everyone on the planet felt that roar and felt a shiver go down his spine when he realized that that beast was in Sephiroth's employment.

Finally the roar stopped, and Bowser looked at Ness again and entered a battle stance. Without hesitation, Ness began his first attack. end 5

**_Next Chapter_**

_What is the meaning of life? What is light and darkness? How many forms can energy and power take? Finally, what is the 'Dark Heart Conspiracy'? Questions will be answered and even more raised when we continue this tournament._

_Next time: "Conspiracy". _

_Reap what you sow._


	3. Conspiracy

Chapter 3: Conspiracy

1 The third battle of the day got off to an explosive start as Ness battled his Goliath-sized opponent. He was only ten years old, but his physic abilities gave him the power to dodge Bowser's sharp claws, which were as big as his torso. He bobbed left and right, using his powers to levitate, and when he saw an open shot he zapped Bowser with lightning. His opponent breathed fire at Ness and took as many opportunities to do damage as he could. The battle raged on like a game of tug-of-war for a while.

Cloud noticed that the crowd around him seemed more interested then usual. The crowd gaped and cheered with every passing event in the fight. It was a battle between a kid and a dragon, taking place in a raging forest fire; it was the stuff of legends and fairy tales. Many were fascinated at how a ten year old kid from earth, a world notorious for having weak fighters, could battle this behemoth. Cloud and his group however, were watching patently, waiting to see what Bowser would do.

The fight continued as normal, never going too deeply into to burning forest around them. Ness attacked Bowser with an electrically charged uppercut to his face. Bowser quickly stepped back and the attack missed, leaving Ness open to a roundhouse kick from his oversized foot. Ness went flying backwards and vanished into the burning woods.

For a few seconds, the battle stopped. Then a strange thing happened. The area where Ness seemed to land started to rumble. Then it twisted and contorted as though it were underwater. The area bloated and finally imploded into itself. An object moved from that area to Bowser at a tremendous speed. With twin electrically charged fists in front of him, Ness blasted towards Bowser like a bolt of lightning. The seemingly young child reached Bowser and savagely punched him in the face over and over, as quickly as he could. Every hit dug in to Bowser's face and pushed him back. He hit him again and again and again until one last punch knocked Bowser a few meters back. Both Ness' hand and Bowser's face were covered in his sickly green blood.

The injured dragon stood up and glared at Ness with his crimson eyes. He balled one of his scaly claws into a fist and it ignited into a ball of fire. It reminded Cloud of one of Mario's skills, but it was much more magnificent. He then did the same thing to his other claw, so that there was a ball of fire at the end of both of his arms. He waved his arms around at incredible speed and hundreds of smaller fireballs erupted from his hands and hurtled towards Ness.

Cloud, for all his battle skills, couldn't follow Bowser's hand movements. He looked over to his friends. Link was trying to follow it as were most of the other people there. Mario had the sense to not even bother trying. Strangely, Chrono seemed to have gone into some sort of trance, and was staring deeply at the ring. Upon closer inspection Chrono's eyes were moving rapidly, indicating that he was managing to follow Bowser's hands.

Finally, the fireballs stopped coming. Ness was pushed a few feet into the ground and was starting to get up. Bowser was not going to give him the chance however, and charged over to him. He jump a few meters into the air and hit Ness with a pile drive. Then Bowser stood up and backed away from Ness. With a large amount of difficulty, Ness stood up again, but this time Bowser did nothing. Ness looked pretty beat up. His shirt was ripped and dirty and his hair was matted. The look on his face was so filled with anger and determination it was surreal coming from a ten-year old.

Suddenly the two warriors started talking again. Cloud didn't know what they were saying, but he did notice a few other things. Something about the air changed. It was hard to put his finger on exactly what it was, the best he could describe it as was a light twinge. He looked around, and most people seemed oblivious to the change, the only ones he saw that reacted to it were Chrono and Link. The twinge got stronger, and he now recognized it as a pulse of energy radiating from the ring. They were both preparing for something big. He leaned in closer to see what it was. He wanted something; some clue to what Bowser was planning. What was Auron looking for? If he could only hear what they were saying…

An explosion caused him to recoil to the back of his seat. Lightning and fire rushed from their respective warriors and to their opponents, passing through the other element. Bolts of plasma raced through the inferno from Ness' palm to hit Bowser squarely on the chin and the same was true for Bowser's attack. Both were having trouble keeping the attack up while under so much pain. This duel was brutal and seemingly unending; it lasted for over thirty seconds just like this.

Ness saw his chance and took it. He stopped firing and at top speed flew over to Bowser. He charged his fist and took a swipe at Bowser from behind. It missed. Bowser sidestepped the attack and wound up behind Ness. He took his giant claw and grabbed Ness's whole head. The child helplessly tried attacking Bowser to escape, but his monstrous opponent squeezed his head with his massive claw. Ness screamed in pain, audible even to Cloud.

Bowser took his other claw and started ripping at Ness, who was still screaming in agony. Cloud could see that Bowser was being careful not to kill him. He was causing more pain than actual damage. Screaming and bloody, Ness was a horrible sight, and from the way the audience looked, he wasn't the only one who thought so. This was the first time Ness looked like a little kid in an adult's fight. He saw a few people in the nearby rows crying, and Mario was gritting his teeth and tightening his fist.

Finally the screaming stopped and Ness went limp. There were receptors that tell the audience both fighters physical injuries through an HP score and, while it was in low double digits from a perfect thousand, it wasn't zero, so it was likely that Ness was only unconscious. Then Bowser dropped his limp opponent, and waited to be declared the winner. End 1

There were a minutes of silence from the tournament administrators. Everyone who saw that fight knew that it was a borderline violation of the "excessive force" rule of the tournament, the penalty of which is disqualification from the tournament. It was a lesser version of the anti-killing rule which involved imprisonment. In this new multiverse, each world had its own laws, and on the otherwise governmentless world of Tantalus, Sieg's rules were law. The only way to get away with death in this tournament was to specifically ask Sieg for a pardon, which he had yet to ever give out.

Cloud and his friends didn't speak one word until Bowser's ruling was given out, during which Cloud impatiently twiddled the fingers of his gloved hand. Finally, Kuja spoke. "The tournament administrators have decided that Bowser will be allowed to compete in the tournament under probation. That means that should he break any rules for the duration of this tournament, he will be kicked out. Also, due to the delay ruling and the fact that time will be needed to repair the ring, the wait between fights will be fifteen minutes instead of ten. The competitors have 12 minutes left. That is all."

Suddenly the force field machines revved up and something that looked like a glass orb surrounded the ring. Then Cloud heard a click, and the glass orb turned opaque, blocking out the ring from view. Cloud wondered what they were hiding when Mario spoke up, "Now you see what I mean. He pushed himself too far, and lost his mind."

Chrono turned to Cloud and said, "Mario, Ganondorf, and that Kefka person; are they all under Sephiroth?"

"Yes, they respect and follow him without question. They may even fear him somewhat," said Cloud.

Chrono stuttered. "That's….unbelievable. To command three warriors like that….. He would need to be…."

"Nearly invincible," Link finished for him.

"Yeah…I wonder what types of powers Kefka has…" Sonic said.

"Well, we'll find out soon enough. His fight is coming up later today," said Chrono.

"Hey," said a voice from behind Cloud.

Everyone turned in Cloud's direction and they saw Vaan standing a few feet away from him. Cloud got out of the way and Vaan sat down next between him and Mario. He looked distraught, but it was hidden behind an obviously fake energetic demeanor. No one else seemed to notice it except Chrono, whom Cloud always thought was the most observant member of the group. They all talked for a while, although Vaan never actually addressed where he went. After a while they heard the announcement that the fight was beginning.

The battle was against two animal-like creatures, one reptilian and the other mammalian. The fight was rather dull and long lasting, and when the reptile won Cloud breathed a sigh of relief that it passed without incident, before he realized that Aeris' fight was up next.

"Are you ready, Aeris?" he said.

"Of course I am. Do you think I would be out of practice just because of a little case of death?" she said with a large smile.

The group looked at her strangely for a bit before she picked up a large rod from behind her seat. It was at least four feet long and overly ornate for a battle weapon. Cloud gave it to her last night; it was the same weapon she used in the Midgar War before she died. She said good bye to everyone and then made her way to the ring.

"So, does anyone know who she's up against?" said Vaan.

"Someone named Sora, I think." said Cloud.

"Sora?" said Chrono. Cloud confirmed and Chrono quickly got up and said "I'll be back in a few minutes. I have to go to the bathroom," He turned and started muttering to himself while walking; during which Cloud distinctly use the word, "Idiot." Suddenly Chrono turned around again and said, "By the way, my friend from yesterday is coming to meet me for lunch. If we're eating together, he'll be joining us."

"So how well does she fight?" Fox asked Cloud after Chrono had left.

Cloud looked at him and gave him a slight smirk.

Aeris looked at the clock hesitantly; the fight would be starting any second. She was a great fighter before she died, but she didn't know if this body would be as strong, or if some other part of death had weakened her. She strengthened her resolve to fight. "Cloud did a lot to bring me back to life, I won't let him down now," she thought to herself. Suddenly, the door to the ring opened, and she entered.

Her opponent was a teenage boy in a goofy outfit. His brown hair was spiked in a way that reminded her of Cloud. His childish face and large, glossy eyes masked the warrior that he had to be to be in the tournament. In his hand was something that could at best be described as a large key.

Kuja started speaking while Aeris was unzipping the bottom portion of her dress so that they acted more like pants. "Welcome to the last fight of the East Division before the hour long Mid-division break. Our first fighter is Aeris Gainsborough Strife and... That's all I have to say about her, the rest has been declared confidential by Sieg." Kuja ended the sentence with a shrug before continuing.

"Her opponent is the fourteen year old Sora Skye. Born on Destiny Islands, current homeworld is unknown. This is the first time he's competed in any tournament, but he did well in the prelims, so we'll just have to see.

Well, there's not a lot else to say about this fight, so we'll just have to see. On my count, you can begin. One. Two. Three. BEGIN!"

Aeris ran up to him with speed that even surprised her. She took her staff in both hands and held it like a small battering ram. Before Sora could even move she was on top of him, dealing a large quantity of blows to his upper torso. Sora managed to jump back a few feet and Aeris attacked again. This time, Sora dodged the attacks, although with great difficulty. Sora weaved and bobbed between attacks like it was an art form. This continued on for a few minutes, never leaving the center part of the ring. Finally, Sora used his large key and blocked an attack. Her rod got caught in the key, and she couldn't move it anywhere except against the key.

"This is the Keyblade" said Sora "It may look like a movie prop, but it's the only weapon of its kind and it's incredibly powerful."

"You talk too much." Said Aeris and Sora's expression darkened. He yelled out a spell and fire erupted from the tip of his Keyblade. It zoomed around in a way that reminded Aeris of a leap, and began to fall right on top of her. Quickly, she yelled "RELESHAN!" and the fire ball melted into nothing a few inches from her. Suddenly, the fire ball reappeared where it dissolved, and did the same thing it did before, only this time it attacked Sora.

Sora was too shocked to take any defensive measures and was hit head on by the ball of fire. He clutched his head in pain and ran off to recuperate in the forest. Aeris ran after him but couldn't find him in the dense forest. Minutes passed without any sign of him, and she was getting worried. He must have recovered by then and was probably planning his counter attack, she thought to herself. She was right.

A disk of energy flew towards her, cutting down every tree in the way. She jumped out of the way and the disk just barely missed her. She stood up and looked for the source of the blast. Then she felt a sharp pain in her left part of her waist. She looked at the pain and saw that her dress was torn and the area was bleeding. Clutching her waist, she looked around and saw the source of the injury; the disk came back like a boomerang.

Then she saw Sora, who caught the disk with ease. "The disk is his Keyblade!" Aeris thought to herself. He threw it again. Aeris dodged both the throw, and the return, but every time it came back to him, he just threw it right back at her. Aeris dodged left and right, taking a number of blows just like the first one. A good amount of the area had been deforested by Sora, and his shots were getting more and more on target. She couldn't dodge any more; he was going to hit her directly sooner or later. She gathered her energy and called out, "AERO!" A gust of wind attacked the disk and it stopped dead in its tracks. It shook a lot, trying to break free from the wind, but the momentum was lost, and it fell impotently to the ground.

Sora, looked at the Keyblade in disbelief, he knew that he would never reclaim it before Aeris did. He looked at Aeris and his body began to shine with a light blue light. A large aura surrounded him, and he looked frightening to Aeris. He gathered energy in the palm of his hands, and prepared to fire a huge blast of energy towards her. Then he froze. He stopped the attack dead, and had a pained look on his face like he almost did something bad. He was distracted, and Aeris took advantage of the opportunity. She was going to finish this with one attack. All her magical power was focused in her rod, which she pointed at Sora like a gun. Then she released it as a huge wave a pure white energy, which engulfed Sora.

When it finally dispersed, Sora was unconscious. A few seconds later she was declared the winner, and she breathed a deep sigh of relief. She took a look at her wounds; they weren't major and would be healed within a few days. Then she hastily left the ring and headed back to her seat.

As soon as Aeris arrived back at her seat, she was berated with questions about her fighting style. "What type of fighting style was that! I've never seen anything like it," Mario stuttered. "Where did you learn to fight?" asked Fox. "What was that blast you fired at the end?" said Chrono, who had come back a while ago. All Sonic could say was, "You can fight?"

Aeris looked a bit surprised at first, and when she looked at Cloud, he only shrugged. Aeris sighed and said, "It's a cross between Judo and white magic. I'm self taught. That blast at the end is the best white magic spell and the only one that does direct damage, Holy. And yes, Sonic, I can fight. Why wouldn't I be able to?"

Sonic just gaped at her silently. "That should kill any latent sexism in this group." thought Cloud with a chuckle. As much as he'd like to see where this went, he had to interrupt. "I have a meeting with someone. I don't know if I'm allowed to bring anyone, so I'll be going alone."

"What? You're not bringing us?" said Vaan.

"I just told you why I can't." said Cloud agitatedly.

"Well, I'm saying you can, and if Auron doesn't like it, too bad. You all deserve to know what's going on."

"Fine." said Cloud sharply. He didn't like to be pushed around. "I'm sorry if this is confusing for everybody, but you'll all understand when we get there, I think." He said to everyone, who now nodded with understanding. "Now we…. Oh crap," Cloud said as he realized his own stupidity. "I forgot to ask where to meet him."

Vaan rolled his eyes and then sharply said, "You can be so useless sometimes, Cloud. Just follow me; I know where he intended on gathering." Vaan started walking out of the stadium and the rest of the group hesitantly followed. The group was quiet, and the ten minute walk passed by without incident or conversation. Then, they reached a small area in town. Auron was sitting at a bench along with Yuna. With the exception of Vaan and Cloud, the entire group was surprised to see Auron there, who they barely recognized. Vaan walked up to them and said, "Shall we begin?"

2 "Yes. For those who don't remember me, I am a friend of Tidus', the boy who was injured by Ganondorf yesterday. Before we left the hospital, I approached Vaan with a concern of mine. Something about that fight seemed off, and I suspected cheating."

Everyone looked shocked at this, except Link, who said, "You felt the discrepancy in Ganondorf's spell's power too, right?" Auron nodded. "I see. Carry on."

"As I was saying, I noticed something amiss, so I had Vaan use his connections with Sieg to find out if there was something he could find in any of the current tournament's records."

"It didn't take long to find something," Vaan said. "The first thing I found was that the rankings members of Sephiroth's group got in the prelims was different from what they would have got to be seeded where they were. They were all enough to get in, and a few scored even higher then they claimed, but what matters is the fact that they were changed. Someone wanted to make sure, not only would they get in, but they would be fighting who they wanted to fight.

But that's not the major thing, either. Auron thought that someone gave the extra power to Ganondorf using the force field machines, so I looked at all the records for their electrical readouts. There was another discrepancy. Everything seemed normal, but at specific points the energy patterns varied wildly."

"One of the ones he found," said Auron, "was a spike in energy output that he placed right around the time of Ganondorf and Tidus' fight. That should prove my theory right there."

Vaan's expression darkened. "But there's more. There were six times yesterday where there was a period of extra energy being taken along with the alternating current and diverted someplace else. The one I recognized immediately was during that fight, right after the spike in output, but I couldn't place the others. I racked my brain, and pulled an all nighter trying to figure out the link. Most of them were during a fight, but a few went outside that requirement. Then this morning, I noticed a slight spike around the time you told us about Sephiroth. It was within normal parameters, but it looked exactly like a smaller version of the usual spikes.

Then I took a look at each of the individual machines and discovered that certain machines, numbers thirteen through eighteen, were absorbing what ever it was they were absorbing. They were all pulling in far more then they pulled during the other spikes. The middle machine, the one with the strongest pull, was right where those two were fighting yesterday. You remember, it was the one that Sephiroth was looking at?"

Everyone nodded in agreement and Vaan continued. "There was another spike at the end of Ness and Bowser's fight, the largest one yet. Exactly when I thought it would too. That proves my theory…" Vaan shuddered at whatever he was thinking.

Auron spoke up, seeing as Vaan couldn't seem to get the words out. "Sephiroth is using the force field generators to absorb dark emotions." Everyone stared at him with a look of horror on their faces.

"Are…Are you sure?" asked Fox. Vaan bit his lip and nodded. "But what could they do with it, how can emotions be absorbed? This makes no sense…"

"Compared to other things I've seen lately, it makes perfect sense," said Auron. "In the past ten years we have found out so many shocking things about this universe. Is the concept of emotions being a form of energy so unbelievable? After all, love and hate have both led people to do things that they would never had the energy to do without." Yuna shifted uncomfortably at that.

Auron continued. "On top of that, Vaan did research on the two people that were fighting last night. They are from a world called Wayward, and its people have the ability to tap into their emotions to power magical abilities. This causes energy to radiate off of them when they feel a particularly strong emotion, like anger. When they had a verbal conflict, they produced about ten times more energy then normal, an that was absorbed into the machines. It all fits. We need to accept it to counteract it."

Then, Auron looked over to Vaan, and nodded. Vaan nodded back and began to speak. "Despair, pity, sorrow, wrath, greed, pride, and bloodlust. All of these emotions bring out that dark energy, and all of them can be found in both the competitors and viewers of this tournament. They've been planning this for a long time, and it's an inside job. There has to be someone pulling the knobs and levers to make this work. Not only that, but there has to be a container for all this energy that's being collected, and possibly a machine to make it into what ever it needs to be."

Cloud smashed a wall with his gloved hand, leaving the wall cracked. Gritting his teeth, he spoke out. "He actually did it…..there is a large machine somewhere in this world where he is collecting that energy and transforming it into a solid object. I've seen a version of it on Midgar." He thought back to that night. The howling machine, and the look on his face. The blood on Sephiroth's sword……on his……

Chrono said, "Well, I say we take the time to absorb this information and we'll meet during lunch to figure out our counter attack, meanwhile, I'll fill in Magus. Tidus and Sieg should also know."

"I'll tell Sieg and Auron can tell Tidus. We should talk this over during lunch," said Vaan. The group nodded and everyone went their separate ways. The mood was somber and everyone was having trouble absorbing this information. 2

Vaan was already at his seat, going over papers filled with statistics and facts, when Cloud and Aeris arrived at the stadium for the rest of the battles. No one spoke, even after the others arrived and the announcements for the next fight began. They were all too lost in thought. The thought of Sephiroth using their own emotions against them was something they found truly terrifying. They didn't even notice that Magus had failed to show up. Finally, the sound of Kuja yelling out, "GO!" brought all of them back into attention to watch the fight.

Cloud noticed that one of the fighters was the person Isaac was fighting with yesterday. The brown haired warrior was dodging gunshots left and right, and made excellent use of the fauna in the ring. Watching him fight was amazing, and Cloud couldn't help but feel like he would have fun battling him. The warrior was fighting a man completely covered in armor, and was shooting up the whole ring with his rifle. For a while, the battle consisted mainly of the first fighter dodging shots and taking occasional slashes at the armor of the second one. Finally, the warrior got a good hit in and broke the rifle in two.

The battle seemed to have been won with little difficulty, but it was not over yet. The armored fighter drew out a second hand gun and shot his opponent at point blank range, hitting him on the shoulder. He gave a loud yell of pain and fell to the floor of the ring. Suddenly, the ground began to shake. It was slight at first, but it grew and grew, until finally large, sharp rocks came out of the ground and lacerated the legs and arms of the green warrior, going right through his armor. The warrior fell to the floor, bleeding, and was then escorted to the medical tent by Sieg's staff. The brown haired warrior had won the fight, albeit in a somewhat grotesque and unnecessary way.

The mood only darkened among the friends as the fights continued, even though Sonic won his fight in the last round of the division. There was a break in between rounds and the group went to meet with Tidus and his friends for lunch. They arrived at a different restaurant then the one they went to and found the people they were meeting were already there. Sitting at a large round table was Auron, Yuna, and a moderately bandaged Tidus, and with them was a man Cloud didn't recognize.

He was tall, dark, and somewhat disturbing to look at. His skin was grey, and his demeanor was dark and brooding. He had long, shiny blue hair, and his physique as a whole looked like a corruption of Sephiroth. He seemed to be aged a thousand years, and steeped in dark magic. He seemed unnatural among the other faces here, and cloud had to resist drawing his sword. Somehow, however, Cloud was able to remain polite when he spoke.

"Hello everyone. I'm glad to see you're all better, Tidus. May I ask who this is?"

The darkened figure of a man turned over to him and spoke. "My name is Janus Zeal, but Chrono probably referred to me as Magus."

"You're Chrono's friend?" said Vaan. "But you're so….."

"Evil looking?" Magus said with a dark laugh. "Yes, well, long term exposure to dark magic does tend to have that effect on you. However, I can assure you that Chrono and I are long time allies, despite my 'evil-villain' complexion."

"Yes, Magus is very trustworthy, although he does leave an evil impression at first. However, that proved to be useful today. I'll explain, but sit down first. We should have a waiter soon," said Chrono. Everyone did as he said and looked at Chrono intently, but he instead diverted attention to Magus, who began speaking.

"Now, I know all about your theory on dark energy though emotions, and I have good news and bad news. The good news is I am absolutely positive that you are right. The bad news is I already knew about this, and was going to tell Chrono about it this afternoon. All the work you guys did was pointless." He paused when he heard a thud where Vaan's head collapsed on the table before continuing. "I have been drenched in the powers of darkness almost all of my life. I could sense the movements of the darkness moving through the whole planet; it was obvious something was going on.

Not only that, but this man saw what I was doing and actually tired to recruit me," Magus chuckled darkly again. "His name was Ganondorf, a big man with a complexion even more menacing then mine, and said he was a member of Seele, a group attempting the creation of an actual Dark Heart."

"We know Ganondorf and I think Cloud mentioned Seele once, but what's a Dark Heart?" said Link.

"It is basically a genre of magically created items; one that is particularly dangerous. The basic idea is that if you refined and condensed enough darkness, you could cause an imbalance in the nature of the universe. However, there are almost a dozen different types that have been proven to be theoretically possible to create. Some of those are Bloodstones, which could kill and absorb the souls of thousands of people at once, the Dark Spores, which bring out people's latent darkness, and Controllers, which are said to be able to manipulate the flow of time. There are even some ideas about how Dark Hearts could be used for good purposes.

However, this is an extremely hard to perform and potentially dangerous magic. It hasn't even been _attempted_ in decades, since some guy named Adolph from Earth went insane attempting it."

Vaan's head rose very quickly. "Adolph? Adolph Hitler?" Magus thought for a second and then nodded. "That man killed millions of people and started a world war to create this thing! Is that how much darkness and horror is needed for something like this! That's sick!"

"Well..." Magus said, "According to what Ch- to what I've learned, his methods for collection were very unrefined, getting only a tenth of what Sephiroth seems to be getting, but in truth, it's not the death count that matters. Sephiroth could only need to take out two or three people, maybe even no one, as long as enough tragedy surrounds this tournament."

Fox started to look annoyed. "I'm sick of all this talk and no action. What good is it to know what these Seele guys are doing if we can't do anything about it?"

"Actually," Magus said, "I do have a plan…of a sort. It's simple, really. I'll be fighting Ganondorf in the next round. I'll just have to pound some more concrete answers out of him." He followed this with his usual dark laugh.

Link Scoffed. "Ganondorf is no weakling. He is an inhumanly strong warrior, the best I've ever met. And besides that, your plan seems a little rough."

"Yeah!" said Sonic. "I thought you said you weren't evil."

"When did I ever say that? I just said that I was Chrono's friend. I never said I wasn't evil." Magus smirked as he spoke.

"Well, we need to find out what Sephiroth is doing. I think you should do your best, Magus," said Chrono. Cloud nodded.

Then the topic moved on to introductions, although Magus' never really got past "an old friend." They all had lunch and soon it was time for the battles to begin again. This time it was the south division, which included Mario, Chrono, Kefka and Sephiroth, among others. Tidus had to rest up, so he and his friends went back to his cabin. Magus, however, joined the group to watch this division.

The stadium as named Suzaku Stadium, and like the others, had a themed arena, this one was fire. The round ring was filled with small holes like an air hockey table, and was capable of producing large flames at the discretion of Sieg and his staff. Mario, the fire master, was extremely pleased when his name was called and he had the first fight. The fight ended quickly, in Mario's favor, and the words "second degree burns" were mentioned a few times before the second fight began. The fight was pretty fun to watch, and was relatively even and long lasting, but Cloud hadn't really cared about the tournament's random fights since he saw Sephiroth.

Finally, it was Kefka's turn. Chrono turned to the others and said, "I think I'm going to go up a little closer to get a better idea of what we're dealing with."

"I'll join you," said Magus, and the two of them left together.

"So, have you filled Mobius in yet?" asked Magus.

"No, I think I'm going to get some more information and then send a packet to them tonight. They can run it through FATE and see what she says. Regardless, for the time being at least, this is not a Mobius problem. Sephiroth is just a man."

Chrono and Magus arrived and soon after that, Kuja began his usual spiel. Kefka's information was as meager as the rest of Seele's members were. His opponent, Puck, was a knight from the world of Avalon and received a high seeding, more the double the score that Kefka received, not that it meant anything.

As the battle began, Kefka and Puck were just jumping around, avoiding the flames and occasionally launching spells at each other. Kefka dodged and countered while avoiding the flames, which seemed to be particularly vicious in this fight. All and all there was nothing very unusual or violent about the fight.

Then suddenly, it seemed like Kefka saw an opportunity. While Puck was still stuck with the flames, Kefka stopped moving for a second and brought his hand to his face. His skin turned grey and his eyes glowed with a bright orange hue. Then blue lines began spreading from his hand to just a little past his elbow, and the two markings below his eyes that made him look a little like a clown began to glow as well. Finally, his arm transformed into a large white armored hand and a long thin blade grew out from between his fore and middle finger.

Magus looked shocked. "Is that what I think it is!"

"Yes, it's definitely an Atma. He's an esper. From the look of it he probably used a Varna." Chrono looked and with a grimace. "They'll be interested to hear this, I'm sure. However, I'm not quite ready to get them officially involved yet. There have been espers like him before."

The fight continued, but this new Kefka moved faster then before. Before he even knew what had happened, Kefka's blade had sliced right into Puck's torso, leaving a very long and bloody, but luckily shallow, flesh wound. Paramedics took Puck away, and Kefka was the winner.

When Kefka left the ring, Chrono went over to talk to him. "You're an Esper, aren't you? Do you know what the punishment for that is? Men like you are not allowed to posses Atmas."

"Oh, I know what I did, and I don't care if you are some big shot. I'm not going down with Sephiroth behind me."

"So, if you knew who I was, then why did you go out of your way to show off?"

"Simple, I needed to get you mad. You know that the Dark Heart is fueled by darkness," said Kefka with a smile. "You should be more careful, your emotions will betray you. Now then, I must be going." Kefka left and Chrono just grit his teeth and dealt with a new major piece of information. For a second he just stood there before running back to get Magus and inform the others.

_**Next Chapter**_

_Life and death are a part of battle, and oaths can be both made and broken. One plan will fail, and another will succeed. Tensions rise and friendships will be tested, but in the end, the members of Seele will make their biggest move yet, and the threat will become much more real._

_Next time: "Friendship's End"  
You're going to carry that weight._

Authors Notes: So, I finally managed to finish this chapter. Heh, when I first started it I was aiming for the end of September. Pity how much time gets devoted to other things. However, and I know I say this a lot, I am going to attempt to write more often. Thanks to anyone willing to read it.

Now then, I know this chapter is only half of the usual, but I promise that I meant for it to be this way. It works out rather well, anyways. This was supposed to be the build up chapter to the next one, with the first two being the proper series start. And I promise that the next one is going to be big, long, and interesting. People will finally stop talking and start taking action….sort of. You'll see…Next time, on Dragon Ball Z...Never mind.


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